Optimal Training

NCAA Cross Country Championships Recap

2009-11-26T10:25:13-08:00

Crap. It's been a few days and I forgot to post my NCAA XC Recap. It's up at Runner's Tribe now. I cover:

the top ten performances,
the top five stinkers,
the top three uncomfortable quotes,
three things I'd like to see changed for next year,
and finally, the five predictions from my previews that will haunt my dreams.

Thanks for reading!

NCAA XC Previews!

2009-11-19T20:17:56-08:00

I just put up two previews of the NCAA Cross Country Championships at Runner's Tribe. I cover all the big questions, like:

Why is #1 ranked Stanford still an underdog, despite their amazing season?
Which NBA teams are Stanford, Oregon and Oklahoma State like and why?
What does the #2 ranked women's team have in common with an untrue urban legend?
How many records will Jenny Barringer break and which ones are they?
Who will be the top freshman finishers in each race?
And of course, who is going to win and why?

I give some bold predictions and I make a few ridiculous arguments, but it's more fun to take the Adam Dunn approach to predictions: it's either going to be a home run or a strike out. In the meantime, I hope you'll give them a read and leave me a comment here or there with your thoughts on the NCAAs.

Here's a snippet of the Men's Preview:

All you can ask for as a fan is a competitive race. Team titles decided by battles from the first man to the fifth. Some years, though, one team is so stacked that while you hope for a battle, but you don't really expect to see one. This NCAA Cross Country season, that team was Oklahoma State.

Don't ask me why they've been ranked #2 in the USTFCCCA polls all year, when they have five studs returning and the 16th place finisher in the NCAAs (Girma Mecheso) transferred to the school. That team is like the Los Angeles Lakers of the NCAA. They have a Kobe-esque superstar in German Fernandez, a bunch of studs throughout the lineup, and they picked up an apparently moody star in Mecheso (the Ron Artest connection). They have to be number one, unless the rest of the coaches think OSU coach Dave Smith is more Del Harris than Phil Jackson. Personally, I expected them to run roughshod over the NCAA competition, including Oregon...(continue reading)

Here's a snippet of the Women's Preview:

This year's team battle in the NCAA Cross Country Championships women's race wasn't looking to be much more than a skirmish at the beginning of the year. That's because the Washington Huskies returned nearly everyone from the squad that won NCAAs last year with a grand total of 79 points. In fact, that team almost put all seven in front of every other team's fourth runner (only Oregon put 4 in before their 7th). Just like last year, they are too deep, too strong. They are like a teenager in a pillow fight with kindergarten students. There's no challenge they can't absorb and there's no attack they can't repel. They were dominant last year and this year would be the same.

But just when I worried it was going to be anti-climactic, up stepped Villanova...(continue reading)

The NCAA Cross Country Championships will be held at Indiana State University on Monday, November 23rd. You can watch live on Versus at 12pm (EST).

It's about time - Meb's NYC Victory

2009-11-02T22:37:48-08:00

I can't tell you how excited I was to hear that Meb Keflezighi won the NYC Marathon on Sunday. Meb was a big reason why I chose to attend UCLA, and his amazing success throughout high school, college, and the professional ranks is a testament to his amazing work ethic and his unflappable personality. I can honestly say I've never met a person in any field who is more dedicated, more consistent, or more disciplined than Meb is to his running.

I think it's fitting that Meb was the first American to break the 27 year losing streak at New York. Not because Ryan Hall wouldn't be deserving but because Meb has done a lot to bring back US distance running. With that in mind, I wrote up a little article about Meb the Marathoner for Runner's Tribe where I try to add a little context to Meb's marathon successes. Here's the start:

It's about time. It's about time an American man won a marathon major again. It's about time a group of Americans represented in force on our home turf. And it's about time that Meb Keflezighi won himself a laurel wreath, winning yesterday's ING New York City Marathon. (Results)
Five years ago, Meb made the complete transition to the marathon, and promptly went out and won a silver medal at the Athens Olympics. He had previously finished 2nd at the Olympic Trials, and shortly after Athens he went on to finish 2nd in New York. He followed that with a couple third place finishes in New York and then Boston, giving him five top three finishes in his first seven marathons. But no victories.

The ironic thing is, he never ran particularly fast times during this period either. His best was his 2:09:53 in New York in '04. I'm sure he figured faster times would come, but during the three years when he was far and away the top marathoner in the country, he didn't chase times. Instead, he opted to race big US marathons with slower, tougher courses. I spoke with Meb's coach, Bob Larsen, at the UCLA-USC dual meet this year and he talked about Meb during that period between '04 and '05.

Click here to read more about Meb in 2004, about how Meb is a Competitor (as opposed to a Racer), and why Meb should stick to courses like Boston and New York.

Runner's Tribe's new website up and "running"

2009-10-21T23:04:52-07:00

Oh, I love a good pun. But I love a bad one even better.

Big news for all of us at Runner's Tribe, as the new website is officially up and running as of today. My mom realized it went live before I did, as I left old links in my last post. Way to go, Mom! Runner's Tribe fan of the day!

The back end is built by Flocasts, the founders of Flotrack, and anyone who follows track and field knows that the folks over there certainly know what they are doing! There are a lot of new features built in, including an automatically generated "15 Most Popular" articles list, in which a few of my articles showed up. Nice!

One unfortunate circumstance is that a lot of old links were broken in the creation of the new site. As such, many of the links to my old articles on this blog won't be valid anymore. I'll try to update those, but in the meantime, here's the new link to my archive of feature articles:

One Small Step

I hope you'll all drop by to take a look and let us know what you think!

Relating to Greatness (+ Pre-Nats thoughts)

2009-10-19T10:04:36-07:00

Update: Runner's Tribe rolled out its new site, but it broke my links! The links have now been updated, and I encourage you all to go check out the new look at Runner's Tribe!

The NCAA Pre-Nationals weekend marks the first weekend where the best start to separate themselves from the rest. Pre-Nats saw most of the top teams compete, but there were others, including men's favorite Oklahoma State, who opted for the Chile Pepper Invitational instead. The big star of the Pre-Nats meet was Jenny Barringer, who dominated some of the best runners in the country en route to a huge victory.

Her coach, Mark Wetmore, had some interesting stuff to say about Jenny coming back, and it inspired my latest column at Runner's Tribe. Here's a snippet:

Wetmore was asked in a Flotrack interview what it means to his team to have her return for this cross country season. He said: "First of all it takes a couple of hundred points off our score immediately. Secondly, they've gone from the point of being awed by her to just respecting and emulating her. Their training in the last year has come up a notch. They don't aspire to beat her right now, but a year ago they didn't even aspire to be like her and now they do."

Sometimes the hardest thing to do to a great athlete isn't beat them, it's relate to them.

How often have you talked about a great athlete and heard people use words like "freak", "machine", "out-of-this-world", "bionic", "superhero", "robotic", "cheat code" or "Kenyan"? These words don't just serve to differentiate a person, though. They emphasize that what makes them different is something we don't have and we can't match. Be they mutant, alien, programmed for destruction, or simply from the Kalenjin tribe, the sport, we are told, is just different for them.

We have a natural bias toward talent in this country, and maybe throughout the world. We love talent, we love the idea of talent, and we love to identify and worship talent. And when we've found a talent to love and worship, we do so by ascribing all of their success to their amazing talent. It's the highest honor to be described in words like the above, words that serve to separate you from the world of mere humans...

I also consider five cross country thoughts from NCAA Pre-Nationals weekend:

The Big Three Represent: Chris Derrick, Luke Puskedra, and ... Colby Lowe?
How good are the Stanford men?
Can Colorado compete with Washington's women?
How good is Jordan Hasay?
Who was missing The Fifth Element?

Continue reading here.

Half the Distance

2009-10-08T16:08:45-07:00

The World Half Marathon Championships are coming up this weekend (as are the Chicago and Melbourne Marathons), and it got me thinking about the half marathon. My recent article at Runner's Tribe takes a look at a race that has been historically underappreciated, but that has grown into a major event over the past few years. I pulled some interesting stats as well, so if you'd like to see how the half marathon has progressed at an elite level, there's some good stuff in there for you. Here's a snippet:

If there's one race that's been historically underappreciated, it's the half marathon. With its Phidippidian roots, the full marathon has long been the cool guy at the road race party. And with their track equivalents, shorter time requirements, and easier logistics, 5k and 10k have ruled the road race circuit for years. This has meant the half-marathon has, until fairly recently, been the Steve Erkel in the family of road races. Always there, never popular. But not anymore. I'd say it's now at least the Theo Huxtable to the marathon's Fresh Prince of Bel Air. (Oh, where did the '80s go?)

It's always been hurt by its lack of inclusion in the Olympics or World Championships. I can see why they opted not to include it in the Olympics, but I don't see why it isn't included in the World Championships. I'd like to see it there. Of course, I'd like to see cross country in the global championships, too. Who needs the 1500m, really? (Kidding!)

The half was never legit. It was basically run as a tune-up race, rarely for its own sake. Batting practice before the official game, so to speak. Now, it's become legit. There are a couple things driving this, I think.

Click here to read the full article.

Usain Bolt to ESPN: Let's Race

2009-09-28T23:14:27-07:00

I know someone at ESPN who forwarded me this email, received over the weekend in her work email:

From: Usain Bolt

Sent: Saturday, September 26, 2009 6:54 PM

To:   [Bristol & New York Mailing Lists]

Subject:        Can you spare 9.58 seconds?

Importance:     High

The Challenge: You vs. me in one big 100M race

The Place: Ronzo Road outside the Digital Center on the Bristol Campus

The Time: 11:15 AM

If you're up for the challenge, reply to this email and I'll do a random drawing to see who will race me Monday morning. If you don't make the cut, you should still come check it out. It'll be quick.

Bring your running gear. I'll see you Monday.

Usain

How cool is that? Apparently he raced 8-10 people, giving them a small head start, and "passed them all, running the last 15-20 yards with his arms spread like an airplane, weaving to the right and left. Then he straightened up and ran across the finish line pumping his chest." Sounds like an awesome experience.

[Update: Thanks Josh for sending the link to the video. I've embedded it below!]

The Mahoroba Marathon

2009-09-25T14:35:34-07:00

I just came back from a trip to Japan with my wife. We stayed with her family on a milk farm in northern Japan. One of the highlights was running in the Takahata Road Race, also known as the Mahoroba Marathon. In my latest article at Runner's Tribe, I give a brief overview of my trip with special emphasis on running in a small town Japanese road race.

A snippet:

And of course, we ran the Takahata Road Race, also known as the Mahoroba Marathon, or "An exceedingly great marathon surrounded by mountains and hills." Seven years ago, soon after coming to Japan fresh out of college, I ran the 5k race and set a course record of 16:13. For my efforts I received four trophies and a hand-written certificate in beautiful script. (Photo of me next to the trophy with my name on the ribbon. I wrote about the experience briefly here.) What I didn't know at the time was that serious adults only run the 10k and up, leaving the 5k to the high schoolers. So I basically broke protocol and crushed some aspiring high school champion's dreams. (Sidenote: they've since changed the awards to include both high schoolers and adults, so maybe my time in Japan did make a difference.)
Every town in Japan has a road race, but Japanese road races aren't like road races in the States. Japanese people don't subscribe to the notion of a "fun run". Whereas local road races in the US often have hundreds (if not thousands) of people jogging them, people in Japan either race it or cheer from the side. Since I imagine most people have never run a Japanese road race, here's a brief overview of how it goes.

Click here to read the full details!

And for those of you who are interested, you can see a small photo album I created!

Should Ritz run 40 mpw? (and Amby's real message)

2009-09-01T21:17:52-07:00

A boldly controversial blog post by Amby Burfoot at Runner's World has riled up a few readers and even spawned a satirical response from Justin Young at The Cassidy Feed. Basically, Amby argues that Ritz's major issue is staying healthy, and prescribes for him a diet of 40 mpw running in his training. That's what most readers got out of it, not least in part because Amby really does suggest this in all seriousness. As he says (to Alberto):

So here's my proposal: Be courageous, and make Dathan a guinea pig in the Great Training Experiment. Put him on a 40-mile-a-week training program.

We can only assume that Dathan has a say in this. He then states that there's little evidence against it, lists some athletes who were successful without running high mileage (specifically Bannister and Henry Marsh, but leaving out Matt Giusto, who was the best example I could think of), and outlines what a workout week would look like. Then come the paragraphs that most readers apparently skipped or didn't really think about (emphasis mine):

Of course, Dathan should do a lot of other stuff. All that Nike can afford, in fact. He should sleep 10 hours a day in a altitude chamber, do tons of cross-training on non-impact machines, work out occasionally on low-gravity and under-water treadmills, and find the best physical therapist-trainer out there to be his personal strength/flexibility coach.

The only thing he shouldn't do is run more than 40 miles a week, or whatever low ceiling he and Alberto agree on.

Perhaps by actually suggesting workouts, Amby made people focus too much on the 40 mpw and not enough on the main point of the post: Ritz has enormous resources to utilize and might be better served by decreasing the pounding he puts on his legs in favor of a higher percentage of cross-training workouts. Yes he suggests 40 mpw, but no, he's not beholden to that number. He chose it no doubt because it is extremely low, borderline realistic, and most importantly, can shock a reader into paying attention. Unfortunately, it seems he shocked people out of paying attention.

A lot of people criticize Runner's World for catering to hobby joggers. I have a lot of friends who refer to it as Jogger's World. There's some truth to that. But there's also some truth to the notion that mileage doesn't need to be run for mileage sake. You're not going to be great if you aren't working out as hard as the best in the world. That is a given. But could that work be done on an Alter-G at 75% body weight instead of 100%? Could it be done in a swimming pool or on an elliptical? Are these not fair questions?

Personally, I wouldn't recommend this approach to Dathan for two reasons:

1) it's too soon after his switch to Alberto. We don't know if he can stay healthy under Alberto's program, because he hasn't had enough time to prove that he can (or can't).

2) I don't know if he can handle it mentally. I think Amby's probably right that of all people, Dathan is the guy who could handle it...physically. But could Dathan toe the line knowing that he'd worked as hard as everyone else (even assuming he had)? Could he go into every cross training workout completely healthy, yet believing he'll get as good a workout as if he were running? I have no idea, but it's such a paradigm shift that he very well may lose his edge mentally.

Someday, someone will come along and take up Amby on this challenge. Hopefully they'll do amazing things and make us rethink our views about how to obtain success in distance running. In the meantime, I'd settle for Amby's other request, completely overshadowed by that crazy 40 mpw suggestion: Alberto, would you mind sharing with us how you improved Rupp's, Begley's and Ritz's kicks so much? There are a lot of US runners and coaches who could benefit from that knowledge.

New: Men's American Records lens

2009-08-30T19:28:35-07:00

After Dathan Ritzenhein's AR at 5000m last week, I got to wondering a few things:

What are the oldest ARs on the books?
Where does Ritz's performance rank compared to other ARs on the all-time lists?
How does it compare based on the IAAF Scoring Tables?
Is there any place I can go to watch videos of AR performances?

Well, there didn't seem to be one place that provided those answers very conveniently, so I thought it was time to create another Squidoo lens. My newest lens, Men's American Records (you can find it at http://www.squidoo.com/men-ARs) lists all of the track ARs, as well as answers the above questions. In fact, I even threw in the US all-time top ten lists for each event.

You won't find any field events on there yet, since I haven't decided if I should make a separate lens for them or add them in. Also, the relays aren't represented, but they will be. So it's kind of a work-in-progress (as all good lenses are).

I hope you'll check it out and tell me what you think. Don't be shy about answering the poll or providing comments! I'd like to make this a fan-friendly resource, so I'll take all the help I can get!

As for the women's ARs, maybe I'll tackle those next week!